Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever

De: Will Hermes

Narrado por: Adam Verner

Punk rock and hip-hop, disco and salsa, the loft jazz scene and the downtown composers known as Minimalists - in the mid-1970s, New York City was a laboratory where all the major styles of modern music were reinvented, all at once, from one block to the next, by musicians who knew, admired, and borrowed from one another. Crime was everywhere, the government was broke, and the city’s infrastructure was collapsing; but rent was cheap, and the possibilities for musical exploration were limitless.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire is the first book to tell the full story of the era’s music scenes and the phenomenal and surprising ways they intersected. From New Year’s Day 1973 to New Year’s Eve 1977, the book moves panoramically from post-Dylan Greenwich Village, to the arson-scarred South Bronx barrios where salsa and hip-hop were created, to the Lower Manhattan lofts where jazz and classical music were reimagined, to ramshackle clubs like CBGB and the Gallery, where rock and dance music were hot-wired for a new generation.

As they remade the music, the musicians at the center of the book invented themselves: Willie Colón and the Fania All-Stars renting Yankee Stadium to take salsa to the masses, New Jersey locals Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith claiming the jungle land of Manhattan as their own, Grandmaster Flash transforming the turntable into a musical instrument, and David Byrne and Talking Heads proving that rock music “ain’t no foolin’ around”.

Will Hermes was there - venturing from his native Queens to the small, dark rooms where the revolution was taking place - and in Love Goes to Buildings on Fire he captures the creativity, drive, and full-out lust for life of the great New York musicians of those years, who knew that the music they were making would change the world.

©2011 Will Hermes (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“ Love Goes to Buildings on Fire is an almost perfect portrait of New York music culture: specific yet comprehensive, enthusiastic yet objective, and as informed as it is personal. The four-page section of what (seemingly) every interesting person in NYC was doing on the night of the ’77 blackout could have been a book unto itself.” (Chuck Klosterman, New York Times best-selling author)

“Meticulously researched and engaging.” ( Wall Street Journal)

“Revelatory.” ( Entertainment Weekly)

Great book, but narrator fails the "RISD" test...

Great era of music, endlessly fascinating. I appreciate the chronological approach, jumping from genre to genre, band to band, scene to scene. Quite detailed and well-researched.

As it starts getting to the Talking Heads, I think to myself, "Gee, I hope in *this* particular book with sections about bands who attended the Rhode Island School of Design, the narrator doesn't say every letter of RISD like they're spelling out a swear word in front of a child. I mean, you wouldn't pronounce RADAR "R-A-D-A-R," would you? You'd say "Ray-Dar," yeah? But you know that."

*sigh* To the audiobook producers and narrators of the world: IT'S "RIZZ-DEE." One star docked. Excellent, otherwise! :)

BRILLIANT! A MUST READ!

This book is absolutely perfect from beginning to end. It is packed full of names dates and performances that are crucial to the history of music and the culture of America. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Like feeling my own blood pumping, life, music, breath

The most impressive point, for me, was the depth of music influences Hermès brought together to form this account. His knowledge and passion flowed like a series of mountain streams coming together, heading toward the Hudson. Well read and written. Enjoyed every minute of it. Learned a lot.

Utterly essential.

Yes, there have been numerous books about these days, people, bands, scenes...but this is the absolutely comprehensive account. Every burgeoning style and expression in this fecund city is explored in fascinating detail. This is the new authority.

Great history of NY music scene

Plenty of really good stories about artists I love, like Talking Heads and Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. I learned a lot also!